Skip to main content

Home/ Let's Manga/ Group items tagged public

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Nele Noppe

Nonexistent Youth's Guide to Regulation and Censorship in Japan March 2010 Edition - 0 views

  • documents leading to the creation of the bill and information extracted by Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly members indicate that BL (Boys Love,) Yaoi, Ladies Comics, romantic Shojo Manga, and many publications aimed toward girls and women are being targeted.
  • Why are women's publications more likely to be affected by this bill? Because the common visual style in such material is not as graphic as with men's publications, and therefore "not erotic, but dangerous subject matter" criteria for regulation will probably have an impact of women more than men's manga and anime fictio
Manga_chronicle

Le Meilleur du manga - Manga Chronicle - 0 views

  •  
    Parce qu'elle fut riche en découverte, prospère en publications, en succès aussi, ce guide édité par Kazé apparaît comme un outil essentiel pour combler un éventuel manque, dans ce marché où des centaines de titres paraissent à l'année
Ariane Beldi

Manga in/as Essay: Call for Submissions - 3 views

  •  
    Exploring the expressive potentials of manga, our first manga competition seeks original image sequences that play with the themes and ideas traditionally associated with the classical 'ox-herding' sequence. Creative and innovative manga will be rewarded with publication and prizes! Deadline: 31 October 2010
Nele Noppe

Comic Market: How the World's Biggest Amateur Comic Fair Shaped Japanese Dōji... - 0 views

  • the world's largest regular gathering of comic fans today is Tokyo's biannual Comic Market
  • dōjinshi phenomenon did not start with Comic Market, Comike and dōjinshi are inextricably linked, having shaped each other's history for three decades.
  • Comike convention has shaped the most important trends defining the development of dōjinshi in Japan today
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • In 1975, a woman who had made critical remarks about the Manga Taikai was excluded from that convention, and [End Page 234] subsequently a firestorm of anger among fans produced a movement against the Manga Taikai led by the famous circle Meikyū (Labyrinth), which resulted in the conception of a new alternative convention. On December 21, 1975, the first Comic Market—"a fan event from fans for fans"—was held in Tokyo.6
  • [End Page 232]
  • [End Page 233]
  • Comike's underlying vision was of an open and unrestricted dōjinshi fair, offering a marketplace without limitations on content or access.
  • With the advent of these fan-consumers (as opposed to fan-creators), dōjinshi became demand-driven publications. Greater competition gradually fostered rising standards of quality, which in turn attracted more circles and buyers. Higher sales shrank production costs and boosted profits, which could then be reinvested in the dōjinshi themselves. Small printing companies, many of which had begun in the minikomi (microcommunication) boom of the early 1970s, were able to use the profits derived from greater demand for their services to modernize their equipment, lowering production costs further and enabling them to construct their production schedules around each Comike.8 Additionally, lower printing costs freed smaller groups from the dependence on bigger groups, which often had strict rules on content and style to avoid conflict among their many members. Having lost their raison d'être, these big clubs and circles gradually faded away, leaving dōjinshi creators to produce stories they liked, in the manner they liked.9
  • [End Page 235]
  • aniparo parodied popular anime series, and in doing so, attracted a new type of fan to Comike, beyond its core group of 2000 or so attendees. These were female fans, mostly middle and high school students strongly influenced by the 1970s florescence of shōjo manga. They began to create and consume dōjinshi in which the (bishōnen or "pretty boy") male protagonists of popular anime and manga were transposed into a very particular sort of erotic story typified by the phrase: "without tension" (yama nashi), "without punchline" (ochi nashi), and "without meaning" (imi nashi)—and hence the contemporary genre title, yaoi.10
  • The eleventh Comic Market in spring 1979 saw the popularity of the cute and pure bishōjo or "pretty girl" (strongly influenced by 1970s shōjo manga) skyrocket among men's dōjinshi circles, attracting many new male participants.
  • The Comic Market was dominated by women from the beginning (90 percent of its first participants were female), but in 1981, thanks to lolicon, male participants numbered the same as female participants for the first time in Comike's history.13
  • [End Page 236]
  • Internal conflicts on the Comike planning committee underlay some of these developments: they marked the ascendancy of the faction led by Yonezawa Yoshihiro, who favored Comike's unlimited expansion.15 Though he was criticized for purportedly selling dōjinshi out to commercialism, Yonezawa couched his plans for Comike in terms of a collective organization of the convention by all participants, including staff, circles, and visitors.16 Whatever the underlying reality, these public principles remain little changed today.17
  • Faced with this loss of identity, talent, and space, every other large fan convention except Comike dissolved. Yaoi Boom But in the middle of the decade, one manga and its anime not only saved dōjinshi fandom from near extinction but was responsible for its biggest boom yet. Takahashi Yōichi's Captain Tsubasa (1981–88, Kyaputen tsubasa),
  • [End Page 237]
  • New dōjinshi conventions appeared, and manga shops began selling dōjinshi on commission. Comparatively lush, custom-made, oversized dōjinshi with more than one hundred pages became common, and popular circles could now live on their fanworks' profits
  • professional creators like Toriyama Akira of Dragonball fame participating,
  • [End Page 238]
  • Despite the self-censorship brought on by the mass media's criticism, Comike nevertheless continued to thrive. Young men tired of new, tighter restrictions on professional manga turned to Comike, and attendance once again swelled to 230,000 in the summer of 1990.23 Hardcore lolicon was now passé, and erotic dōjinshi for men had greatly changed. New genres were introduced with such aspects as fetishism and a new style of softcore eroticism enjoyed by men and women alike; in particular, yuri (lily), or lesbian stories, emerged.24Dōjinshi also became smaller and shorter due to professional publishers recruiting talented dōjinshi creators en masse: the bulk of dōjinshi were the works of the less talented creators left behind.25
  • Other factors contributing to the increased interest in dōjinshi and in fanworks were the development of fixed otaku landmarks and the spread of computers. Almost everyone could now afford to make digital dōjinshi as well as audiovisual or even interactive dōjinshi (i.e. dōjin music and dōjin games).
  • The personal technology revolution meant [End Page 239] simplification of fanworks' production processes as well as completely new possibilities for communication and new digital genres. With the growth of dōjinshi in other media, the term "dōjin products" (dōjin seihin) has gradually come into use to describe fanworks of all genres.
  • Further, the conversion of Tokyo's Akihabara "Electric Town" into a district full of shops selling otaku-related goods, as well as the nationwide expansion of otaku-goods retailers and the establishment of Internet communities and message boards in the late 1990s, enabled otaku to live out their interests and to communicate nonstop with like-minded people everywhere. Their interests and culture were easily shared, and consequently information on Comic Market and dōjin culture spread around the world.
  • The rise of the Internet also meant that Comike lost its monopoly as the center of otaku and dōjinshi culture. Nevertheless, Comike remained the most important event for Japanese fans, especially after companies with otaku-related products started to exploit it.28 Firms had been interested in Comic Market for decades as a never-ending pool of promising new talent and as a place to exploit them commercially, and they were willing to pay much money for direct access to these masses of otaku.29 Starting with NEC in the summer of 1995, companies were granted exhibition space to market or to sell their newest products. This was the birth of the dealer booth at Comike, and, as with dōjinshi circles, the number of applicant companies was much higher than that of available spaces: a self-sustaining event with such high attendance was too important for any related company to ignore.30 Companies accepted the existence of unlicensed parody dōjinshi using copyrighted material (albeit in a transformative and thus arguably fair-use manner) since they could now sell exclusive goods at Comike (Figure 3) or use it as a marketing place, attracting to the convention people who were not interested in dōjinshi.
  • In the summer of 2004, 5 percent of all circles participating in Comike were headed by a professional mangaka or illustrator, while another 10 percent had some professional experience.
  • Despite its relative newness, Higurashi became one of Japan's biggest media phenomena, and at the seventy-sixth Comic Market in summer 2009, Tōhō Project became the first dōjin title ever to receive the honor of being considered its own genre.
  • [End Page 243]
  • It seems that dōjinshi circles are not switching entirely to the Internet but rather are using it as an informational and marketing platform for themselves and their creations, spreading the knowledge of and fascination with Comic Market to new spheres.
  • With high attendance, positive media attention, and industry support, Comike's position seems invulnerable. Even the deaths of important figures such as Iwata Tsuguo in 2004 and Yonezawa Yoshihiro—who was the face of Comike for decades—in 2006 did not harm its position. But unresolved problems, such as the use of copyrighted material in parody dōjinshi and the child pornography questions inherent in lolicon and shotakon, remain.
  • Comike was neither the first nor the biggest dōjinshi fair when it was established; its main purpose was to provide the freest market possible, and that freedom has come at a price. The dream of a Comic Market open to every one and everything was never realized, as there were too many physical, financial, and legal restrictions. Even today, the Comic Market suffers from a lack of space, a lack of money, and a lack of legal security. Only two-thirds of applicant circles can participate due to constraints, since, as a small independent operator Comike's financial resources are limited and most of the work is done by volunteers.
  • s the center of attention, with its size and its links to the industry, it is undeniable that Comike possesses the power and the means to influence social, market, and even political developments. In [End Page 244]
  • recent years it has not been reluctant to use this power. Whether through conferences on copyright issues or on the establishment of a "National dōjinshi fair liaison group" (Zenkoku dōjinshi sokubaikai renrakukai) in 2000, it has taken on the responsibility of representing and of regulating Japanese dōjinshi culture.
Nele Noppe

George Akiyama | ComiPress - 0 views

  • The manga's full-on depictions of cannibal behavior led to public outcry, and the story got officially blacklisted as a danger to public morals in a number of prefectures (the Japanese equivalent of states) nationwide.
    • Nele Noppe
       
      When was this, exactly?
  • Long before they happened, both the Aum Shinrikyo death cult and the anime Evangelion are weirdly foreshadowed in his work.
Ariane Beldi

Mechademia 3 - 0 views

  •  
    Mechademia is an academic publication on Japanese entertainment from the University of Minesota. It started in 2006 and has already published 3 issues, the last one coming out in December 2008.
Nele Noppe

Open Call for Applications for Full-time Position: Comparative Culture, Saitama University - 0 views

  • Open Call for Applications for Full-time Position: Comparative Culture Institution: Saitama University Institution URL: http://www.saitama-u.ac.jp/ Department: Faculty of Liberal Arts Institution type: National University Content of Work: The successful applicant will teach four 90-minute undergraduate classes per week and one 90-minute graduate seminar per week, and perform the administrative duties required of full-time faculty. Classes will deal with comparative culture (Japanese and a second culture). The primary language of instruction will be English. Research field: Human Science and Comparative Culture               Japanese Culture with a focus on Visual Studies, Film Studies, or Media Studies. Job type: Assistant Professor (Lecturer) or Associate Professor Rank: Full-time tenured position with mandatory retirement at age 65; Assistant Professor: Full-time tenure-track position with 5-year term limit (one renewal possible; tenure comes with promotion to associate professor). Work area: Kanto district ? Saitama Address:  Saitama University, Faculty of Liberal Arts 255 Shimo-okubo, Sakura-ku, Saitama-shi, Saitama-ken, 338-8570 Japan Number of positions: 1 Qualifications:  1. Native or near-native level of fluency in English.  2. Ph.D. in the relevant field (advanced Ph.D. Candidates also may apply).  3. Japanese language reading and speaking skills.  4. Experience teaching in English to Japanese college-level students is preferable. Salary & Benefits: This position carries the standard benefits package, including salary, research funds, and pension available to regular faculty at a national university. Deadline for applications: 2009 / 7 /10 - 2009 / 9 /25 Starting date: 2010/04/01 Application materials: mail the following to the Faculty of Liberal Arts: 1. Detailed CV including research publications, research presentations, and teaching experience. 2. Two letters of recommendation. 3. Copy of Ph.D. diploma (if applicable). 4. Three representative publications (in either English or Japanese) 5. Outline of future research plans (around 1000 words). 6. Statement of your views on education (around 1000 words). Contact: Selection Committee for the HSCC Professor (sc-hscc@gr.saitama-u.ac.jp) Additional information: Personal Information accompanying submitted application materials will be used only for selection and employment purposes. Materials submitted with application will not be returned. Saitama University is an equal opportunity employer.
Nele Noppe

Some responses to Satou Shuuhou's stuff - 0 views

  • Don’t take everything that Satou Shuuhou is saying at face value, there definitely are people that are really poor even while having a regular serialization, but many of them are people who don’t know how to manage their finances properly and just work really slow. Manga can make a lot of money, so please don’t look at manga authors like they’re people that work a lot and get very little in return.
  • I felt there was something wrong with Shuuhou sensei’s choice to sell chapters that have been published on magazine through his personal website. Is Blackjack ni yoroshiku a manga that was created from the start to the end only by Satou Shuuhou (and his staff)? That is impossible. The magazine’s editors must have helped him somewhere along the line. Such as coming up with new ideas on what to write about, or helping to fix up any problems in the roughs.
  • The annonymous author Masuda had said that Blackjack ni yoroshiku would not have sold as much as it did if it didn’t run on Morning magazine. So just how many people would read an online manga which has had no publicity and is being distributed on a personal site? Being published on a magazine that is being circulated across the entire nation gives a lot of publicity.
Ariane Beldi

Psychanalyse du héros de manga - Manga news - 0 views

  •  
    This advertises the publication of a study psychanalyzing the characters of several animes, which have been released in Europe for the last 30 years. This book is only in French for the moment.
Ariane Beldi

Special Issue CFP: Transnational Boys' Love Fan Studies (March 2013) - 2 views

  •  
    "'BL' (Boys' Love), a genre of male homosexual narratives (consisting of manga, novels, animations, games, films, and so forth) written by and for women, has recently been acknowledged, by Japanese and non-Japanese scholars alike, as a significant component of Japanese popular culture. The aesthetic and style of Japanese BL have also been assumed, deployed and transformed by female fans transnationally. The current thrust of transnational BL practices raises a number of important issues relating to socio/cultural constructs of BL localization and globalization. Scholarly endeavors in relation to BL can be enriched by further research concerning the activities of transnational BL fans, fan communities, fandom, and the production of fan fiction. Most previous BL fan studies have remained circumscribed to Japan and North America. Therefore, in order to further develop transnational BL fan studies, we are seeking contributors who are engaged in the exploration of non-Japanese and non-North American contexts (e.g. Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, and others). Transnational BL fan studies may also be incorporated into the broader socio/political critical frameworks offered by studies in economics, gender/sexuality, race/class, and other areas. "
  •  
    For those who are studying fandom and Boy's Love, this might be an opportunity to share your researches!
Nele Noppe

China: "Destroy Japanese Anime!" - 1 views

  • A recent comment by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao decrying the lack of Chinese anime has incited a flurry of online support, with Chinese net users vigorously denouncing Japanese anime. The Premier started the fracas by publically lamenting the current poverty of Chinese visual culture: “There are times when I watch TV anime with my grandchild, but they’re always foreign works like Ultraman and so on, and few are domestically produced. We should be cultivating a domestic anime industry.”
Ariane Beldi

Wakanim.TV - Diffuseur légal et gratuit d'animation japonaise en vostfr ! - 2 views

  •  
    est une plateforme communautaire ayant pour thématique les séries d'animation japonaises. Vous y trouverez un suivi de l'actualité au quotidien, des reportages, des articles, des interviews, ainsi que la diffusion légale de séries d'animation. Chaque semaine vous pourrez regarder des nouveaux épisodes de série inédites, cultes ou en simulcast.
  •  
    This is a legal anime simulcast and webcast portal, with free access the first 2 months of the broadcast. Unfortunately, it is aimed at a French-speaking audience, so all subs are in French (but for those comfortable enough in Japanese, all the video have the original soundtrack).
Ariane Beldi

Digital Manga Publishing Detail New Venture to Launch Over 1,000 Manga Online // Silico... - 2 views

  •  
    Hikaru Sasahara, president of Digital Manga Publishing (Berserk), revealed, this week, to Anime News Network, a new venture his company is planning, by which fans will be able to provide their scanlations online, and these would then be distributed legally with the permission of the original copyright holders.
Nele Noppe

iPad Publishing No Savior for Small Press, LGBT Comics Creators - 3 views

  • Anticipated as a potential savior of the comics industry, distribution of digital comics through Apple's iPhone and iPad is proving not to be the magic bullet many had hoped for. Format issues, pricing concerns, and censorship of content are hindering many creators, particularly those making lesbian and gay comics, from taking full advantage of this new outlet for their work.
  • But Apple chose ePub as the format for books sold through iBooks; the format is not designed to support fully illustrated projects like art books and comic books, and presents them with large white margins on each page. There are only a handful of graphic novels available in the iBooks store; most have been modified to show a few panels per page to avoid shrinking the content excessively.
  • Even if a creator happened to have the technical proficiency to write her own comics app, going from iBooks to a boutique comics app is hardly ideal for a small publisher or self-published creator. You have no opportunity to reach readers unless they specifically look for comic books; you don't benefit from the browsing and search traffic on the larger store and your books won't appear in searches. But even if a creator or small publisher persevered and created and successfully promoted his own comics app, there is the last, and possibly most significant, hurdle to overcome: Apple censorship.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Digital magazine store Zinio, like all content suppliers for iPhone and iPad, agreed to Apple's "Regional Content Review" for all items sold through their app. This means that all "in-app purchasable" content must be approved by Apple to be acceptable to the broad U.S. population (the United States is one "region") or it will block it. The more obvious targets for censorship in the Zinio store included Playboy and Penthouse magazines, but Vogue France was also rejected because it features artistic and occasional use of nudity. Vogue France is also not stocked at Wal-Mart stores for the same reason.
  • Stories have surfaced about comic books being blocked as well. In February, Stephen Lindsay, the creator of Jesus Hates Zombies, discovered that a link to buy his book through the ComiXology app had stopped working. A ComiXology rep explained in a tweet that Apple "deemed it inappropriate according to their SDK guidelines" and they were forced to remove it.
  • "Here's the thing," said Lindsay. "Jesus Hates Zombies doesn't involve any sex whatsoever. None. It has violence and swearing, but that's because it's a mature readers horror comedy. But the violence isn't even intense. And being a black and white comic, there's zero red blood, which means any gore is dramatically cut down."
  • When asked if it would be fair to say that any comics with content that would fit in an R-rated movie (violence, brief nudity without explicit sex) would fit into Apple's guidelines, Murphey agreed.
  • "People seem to think that Apple is slamming our hands down every day saying 'No — we shall oppress this material— you are not permitted to do anything that we do not deem to be family friendly'… and that's not what's happening at all," Murphey continued. "Apple has not censored what we publish in a way that we feel has been terribly oppressive. When things first started in 2008, before they had the parental controls in effect, they were much more strict about what could and couldn't be allowed in the store. Now things are much better."
  • "My problem with Apple banning [Jesus Hates Zombies] is simply this," says Lindsay. "They allow the Marvel book Kick-Ass. How in God's name is my book worse than Kick-Ass when it comes to content? The simple answer, it's not. But because Kick-Ass is a Marvel book, it gets a pass."
  • The experience of smaller publishers producing books with LGBT characters and situations also seems hard to reconcile with Murphey's assessment of Apple's guidelines. Tom Bouden's adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest was rejected as an iPad app for the App Store, again due to "materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory." A handful of sexually suggestive images depicting men, some extremely mild, were specifically flagged as problematic in the 80-page graphic novel.
  • perhaps to avoid calling attention to its restrictions, Apple did not allow black censor bars to appear in content.
  • Yaoi Press packaged their graphic novel Zesty for submission to the App Store with the assistance of digital provider Fika Publishing
  • The book was rejected without explanation.
  • "I'm not as hopeful about the iPad as I was this morning," said Abraham in an article about Manga on the iPad for About.com. "The iTunes store just rejected Zesty, our tamest graphic novel, without citing a reason. We thought this could be a bright spot for us, akin to our sales on Amazon Kindle, but we're very discouraged right now."
  • We have snuck onto Apple platforms through the Kindle app." A search on Amazon's Kindle Store for Yaoi Press titles yields a wide range of prose and graphic novels, all of which can be purchased and synced to an iPad or iPhone. Kindle purchases do not happen "in-app", and are not required to be reviewed and approved by Apple. Amazon appears to have no content restrictions with regard to sexual content; even explicit sexual material appears to be fair game for Kindle books.
  • "Amazon doesn't seem to have a problem with the story," Bonte said. "They accepted it for digital distribution. The problem with Amazon is that they take 70% and Apple only 30%, plus the platform is absolutely not usable for comics.
  • "If Dylan was 20 today," Tate wrote, "how would he feel about your company? Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with 'revolution'? Revolutions are about freedom." "Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data," Jobs responded. "Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is."
  •  
    It looks like I'm not about to get an iPad! I have already decided not to get an iPhone (short-lived batteries, locked software, cost of mobile internet subscription) but it looks like Apple is heading in a direction with which I can't agree, meaning that my next computer certainly won't be from this brand. There were things I didn't like with Microsoft either, but it seems that Apple is doing even worse. And Google isn't walking that much of a more satisfying path. After I'm done with my dissertation, I'm definitely planning on learning better how to use linux and other open-source materials.
  • ...2 more comments...
  •  
    I did get an iPhone last year. The very high cost is somewhat balanced out by the great ease of use, but after all the random app-banning and the launch of this new reactionary device, I have to agree with you and quit buying Apple products. This kind of content censorship is incredibly harmful.
  •  
    Ah! So, you were also a victim of the iPhone craze! ;-) I must say that it does look very enticing and seducing, but I feel that Apple is going too far with all these automatisms, to the point that you don't even know where the stuff you download or even write is stored on your device. There was a time when Apple products were more transparent than Microsoft's. But now, ergonony for the sake of ergonony and design have taken over completely to the point that Apple products are becoming complete "black boxes". My next cell-phone will certainly look a lot more like a smart phone than mine does now, but it won't be an Apple product, nor probably an Android one. I don't like all these geolocalization softwares. I'm not sure what it will be, because my present cellphone is doing ok and have no idea how long it will last, so it will depend on what's available and within the reach of my wallet.
  •  
    Yes yes, it was a bad call, thank you for rubbing it in ;) In my defense, they hadn't started with the app-bannings and absurd censorship policies back then. Listening to Jobs defining "freedom" now, it's like hearing Agent Smith explain the purpose of the Matrix. I'm not sure what my next phone will be, either. Android looks better, but Google owns quite enough of me as it is.
  •  
    Well, I don't blame you! My father got one as soon as he was able to. His excuse was that he needed to receive emails on his cellphone, but there were other brands and models who could do the same. They just weren't as sexy and let's face it, not as frequently displayed in public spaces. As for me, since I didn't want to get a mobile internet subscription, as they are quite expensive in Switzerland (around 60 Euros/month and for a limited amount of downloaded data), an iPhone would have been pretty much useless and would have costed me a fortune (without phone subscription, they were sold between 700 and 800 Euros a piece). So, what saved me, in reality, was simply lack of money and other priorities than mobile telephony. Moreover, I have an iPod mini on which I can download music, radio recording and video shows, so I don't need anything else to entertain me during my train travels. So, really, I have absolutely no merit whatsoever for not following fashion...if I had had the money, who knows...I might have fallen to the craze too! ^_^
Ariane Beldi

OtakuTimes.de - serious about anime & manga - 0 views

  •  
    Die neue Initiative namens Anime Copyright Allianz stellt eine Kooperation von Fans, Conentanbietern und Medienakteure dar, die gemeinsam die Respektierung des Urheberrechts in der deutschsprachigen Manga- und Animeszene fördern will.
  •  
    This is a German website about promoting the respect of copyrigths in the field of animes and mangas. I know that this is an issue of debates, but I think it is worthwhile to read what people on both sides have to say.
1 - 20 of 118 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page